Long Stalks Poems

Watching wan moonlight
illuminate tree limbs,
my heart also brims,
overflowing with autumn.
—Ono no Komachi, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

As I slept in isolation
my desired beloved appeared to me; 
therefore, dreams have become my reality
and consolation. 
—Ono...

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As I slept in isolation
my desired beloved appeared to me; 
therefore, dreams have become my reality
and consolation. 
—Ono no Komachi, translation by Michael R. Burch

Submit to you—is that what you advise? 
The way the ripples...

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Poems about Poems V

Distances
by Michael R. Burch

There is a small cleanness about her,
as though she has always just been washed,
and there is a dull obedience to convention
in her accommodating slenderness
as she feints at her salad.

She...

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Alone I arrive, walking from Frederick
over the gaps, across gentle hills
out onto a knoll
overlooking this burnished landscape.
Before me I see countless writhing rows
of indiscernible shapes gathered
in terrible rituals mid fire and smoke
darkening the sun.
From distant...

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History’s Greatest Miracle Play

Let me tell you a story - Prologue

Actors gather to play their parts
To set the stage – backdrops and props –
In history’s greatest miracle play
Called to speak their lines
On redemption’s stage
In a...

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Lake county music company filled with 
slots carney folk real carny folk the little 
pete's illegal gambling road show throughout 
the  Midwest gaming like your idol Frank Peter 
Balistreiri the mad bomber stops Metropolis...

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 A French ‘Indianist’ Doctor: A Tribute to a Die-hard Humanist
                         ...

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"You really wanna know? Cause I'll tell ya if you really wanna know. You'll be thinkin' I'm crazy before I'm done, but I'll tell ya... ifn' you really wanna know."

The day started like any other,...

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He just appeared to me, like wispily curling 
Chimney smoke, 
One grim and early morning in the very midst of 
Decembers briefest days, on the highest slope,
Toiling through my daily round; where, slowly 
Driving up...

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I walk o u t...

I am lost in unapproachable light—a spectral broth
I am tasting the screaming silence—the archetypal observer
dissects my essence-fossil Passion
a seismic rupture between life/death/rebirth
gnaws at my marrow This dilemma-kudzu
coils tight, constricting tomorrow's breath

Death...

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yet another iffy coronavirus haiku #1
by michael r. burch

plagued by the Plague
i plague the goldfish
with my verse



yet another iffy coronavirus haiku #2
by michael r. burch

sunflowers
hang their heads
embarrassed by their coronas

I wrote this poem after having...

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He sung all the day, all the night of the fourth,
Endlessly, relentlessly, angrily and passionately
Deafening my ears in the wet sugar of his words
In an eternity of hours,
Slowly and dopily, darkness billowed away
Sifting along to...

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Back in two thousand plus some years more of five,
When computers I'd just met, didn't yet with jive;
When a computer was just a box of technology,
A box of fascination and luring like a giant mystery,
I...

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~ Morning Wheat ~ (A Pros Poetry Works) ~


~  ~
  ~ ~
    ""Grace,
    faith
      ~~
       ...

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Severe surge regarding thou shalt not kill violations

Fifth commandment breached regularly
epidemic of gun violence in America
bullets fly, scream and tear into flesh
senseless rampant mass killings
rip across fabric of society
buzzfeeding, jump/kickstarting, 
paradigm of mortality.

Since January first
two...

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Bee in the distance


As Humble flew along,
He could see some bees flying away in the distance.
He was so excited to see new bees,
That he flapped his wings as fast as he could,
To fight his way...

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“The Tear”



How many oceans of salt 
does it take to form a tear?

Unrelenting waves of sorrow 
pounding a broken heart
hears the howl of sharp beaked foolish flying monkeys
ignorant feeding frenzies swallow whole lost families 
swept...

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Thump-thump of stiffening fish contorting
   In the bilge beneath the gunwale; 
 Lidless, bulging, reddened eyes, swivelling upwards, 
Protruding horribly from the straining sockets,
    Express stupefied amazement at inconceivable 
...

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In realms where thought and tempests meet
where shifting sands outpace the feet
a creature stirs with cunning guise
Circumlocution cloaked in darkened skies
its words like desert viper’s sting
they strike the heart then coil and cling.

Through jungles thick...

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New draft Zimbabwe’s 




Tribute Documentary Zimbabwe’s Forgotten Children


Mama will be left behind when I die
I’m too sick to survive
My education was put to an end
When papa had no more to spend
We walk over sewage water
And...

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What to do,
how respond,
to totalitarian tyranny
in someone else's home
or community
or economy?

OK, good question,
I hope,
yet with ample precedent
in polycultural battles to attain harmonious balance
where we have become monopolistically lost.

What do you do,
how respond,
to monocultural stimuli
advancing in...

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Pied tidings of suburbian 
Magpies,
Squawking and squabbling,
Quarreling ferociously among 
Themselves - 
Rush to steal
From off the beleaguered bird 
tables,
To the annoyance of all concerned,
A much begrudged meal;
Before scurrying away into 
Unfrequented woodlands,
Marooned like islands in...

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I peered deeply into a water trickling  dyke clustered by pale blue and green peebles.
“Oh dear I sometimes dig too deep or maybe not diffidently.
Damon Deep thinker, lost in thought type.”
There is that mind...

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The winter solstice has passed, so the spring dance can begin at last,
and everyone is invited, from every tree as far as the eye can see.
To each and every flourishing flower, the buzzing bees and...

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Let fortitude confront the raging beast
for wolfen corps from Hell have entered in. 
They surge in packs, savagely unleashed,
to mutilate the innocence within.
Let ev’ry child and mother of its name
be fodder for this apathetic rage.
Let...

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